Need for Speed Undercover Review

Black Box forgot a spark plug or two. And an engine.

While the game certainly isn't a graphics powerhouse, it can look decent at times. The lighting design can look cool, though unfortunately there are some issues. Shadows are only drawn at certain distances at times, so you'll see them appear on building sides as you cruise along. You'll also find lit polygons appear near the front of your car when they should be dark, especially when you drive through a tunnel, and it's most certainly not supposed to be your headlights. It's just another shoddy glitch that goes to show that the whole game lacks a feeling of any sort of refinement, both in terms of production and overall design.

The sense of speed can be good, but that's about it.

The online component is competent, but very simplistic. You have three modes, which are really only two - Cops and Robbers, circuits races and dashes. The latter two are straight-up races, one of which has multiple laps and the other just having a separate start and finish line. Cops and Robbers is essentially a variant on one flag Capture the Flag where the robbers are trying to deliver the cash to their hideout while the cops are trying to bust them (which resets the cash). All of these work reasonably well and can be fun, but there's not much variety here, as you can tell.

The only two positives I can speak for about the game are its sense of speed and its great sound samples. When you get into a fast ride, like a McLaren F1 for example, you really get a sense of absolutely flying through the city. This part was at least done well. The sound samples for the cars (and tire screeches for that matter) are also quite awesome, though they're not mixed as well as could be. When you hit the gas the game sounds awesome, but letting your foot off the gas results in a dulled engine sound that's barely audible at times. So the sound is good overall, though it isn't perfect by any means.

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The Verdict

Need for Speed Undercover is a poor game with a ton of problems, both technically and in terms of design. The open world design is completely lost as you can't actually drive to any event, many races are closed off which means no cross traffic, and it's incredibly easy. The presentation could have been good but winds up feeling totally contrived and confusing at times. The game could, and should, have been leaps and bounds better than it is.